About this activity
Eight pseudo-stuttering tasks that move outward from the therapy room: pseudo-stutter once while ordering food and note what actually happened; twice while answering a question in class; use an easy repetition on purpose with a friend, what did they do; pseudo-stutter on a phone call to a store; rate your anxiety before and after each, one to ten; what did you predict would happen, versus what actually happened.
How to use it in a session
Take the ratings and the prediction card seriously — they are the mechanism. A student who predicts a catastrophe, produces a voluntary stutter, and finds that nobody reacted has run an experiment on their own beliefs, and the written prediction is what makes the result undeniable. Work up the hierarchy in order; the phone call is the hardest for most students. Twenty minutes plus a real attempt between sessions.
What to listen for
Watch the gap between predicted and actual reactions. It is almost always large, and it is the single most therapeutic finding available in fluency work. Notice which type the student prefers — a repetition or a prolongation — since the easier one is the one they will use, and knowing that shapes the rest of the plan.
Carrying it home
Families can help by being told about the exercise in advance. A voluntary stutter met with alarm at home undoes the point of it, and a family who knows can simply let it pass.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Ninth through twelfth grade, where students can plan, execute and reflect on a real-world task.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all eight tasks are free to use with no account.
- Isn't this asking a student to do the thing they fear?
- Deliberately, and in a controlled way. The point is that a stutter produced on purpose is under the student's control, and discovering that listeners barely react is what reduces the fear.